Saturday, May 26, 2007

What Lies Beneath?

To the idiots who thought that covering the plaster and lathe in a vintage Victorian home was a good idea... oh the SHAME! And to the real estate agents who not only sold this home to Joe and Kris, but were also the owner/occupants at the time of the sale who told them that ALL of the walls were plaster and lathe beneath the floral vomit wallpaper - that they hanged themselves... may you burn in realtor hell.

Yep, you heard right. We began work on bedroom 2 on Monday, and on that morning, as I prepared the room for our painter Steve to begin work, I realized that beneath the insanely wild floral wallpaper was a quarter-inch thick laminated nightmare. 1970's era, dark brown paneling.Don't get me wrong. Paneling has its appropriate place and use (I'm not sure where nor when, necessarily..) but it certainly is not appropriate for use and placement in an 1892 Victorian with original plaster and lathe walls.

So began the process of deciding if we were in fact ready to face what lay beneath the paneling and possibly have to spend our budget for the entire remodel of the house for the repair of plaster in one room, or just do our best for now, cover it - disguise it as best we can, then come back to it at a later date.

We chose the latter. So guess what I'll be doing over the long weekend? If you guessed "Attempting to disguise fucking paneling", then you're absolutely 100% correct!

3 comments:

Jody
said...

Ouch! So sorry you ran into that mess. Been there, done that. It's amazing what you will find from past owners; however, sometimes you find GOOD things. In our 1904 Portland Foursquare we found the original wainscoat UNDER some yucky 1970's paneling! It was a great day. Good luck!

Thanks Jody. It was frustrating at first, but after one failed technique and a three hour trial at another, I am actually having a blast with my creative side in covering the laminated mess in hand-troweled joint compound, otherwise better known as 'sheetrock mud'. As I said, finding the technique was difficult, but it in no way still looks like paneling.

oh how awful. i know whereof you speak, though the house only dates from '42, but my living room ceiling is covered with glued-on acoustical tiles. i DESPISE them but i haven't the will to scrape them off, so i use 40 watt bulbs and enchant everyone with my charming decor to keep their eyes off the ceiling ;-)